Wednesday, June 12, 2013

"Those satisfactions are permanent."

My husband.

Yesterday Taso took me to the Inwood Theater to see a late-night screening of Dr. Strangelove with our friend who manages the theater. It's summer, so I can finally do things like that! We met up with said friend and had a nice, long talk about film. I've so missed those talks. With the exception of a couple conferences, I've only had them with Taso since moving back from New York (which is awesome, but who doesn't love group discussion?). I was feeling pretty good. Excited enough to be there that I didn't notice Taso's somewhat sneaky behavior. It turned out that our friend couldn't watch the movie with us, so the two of us settled in to the best seats in the empty theater and waited for the DCP to load. Instead, a Criterion logo, clearly attached to a Criterion blu-ray, filled the screen, followed by the unmistakable revving of engines. Rather than realize what was going on, I thought surely there had been a mistake -- he had accidentally queued up one of my favorite movies of all of time (not out of the realm of possibility, as the long-awaited blu-ray just came out) and was running to turn it off and start the Kubrick DCP! Typing it now, I feel ridiculous. Nope. My husband had surprised me with an early birthday present, a private screening of Two-Lane Blacktop, one of my Top-5-All-Time-Favorite movies, made even better by the fact that I've spent the last six years trying to get him to watch it with me. It's not a big title, so it's likely that could be my only chance to experience it in a theater (as I think all movies should be experienced). It was wonderful. It gets better every time I watch it. More importantly, I can't think of a better way to see it, or anything I'd like to have more than that for my birthday. And he knew that. He always knows. To be known that way... I can't think of anything better.